Devastation

However, Alan started to suffer backache in March 2003 and I phoned an ambulance as I knew this to be an important symptom of an impending rupture and was not to be overlooked. He was admitted to Leicester Royal Infirmary and had a further scan (the results of which have never been disclosed to us).

He was seen by three consultants from the same department, each of them giving a different opinion. Professor Bell was away from the hospital at that time, but one of the consultants, Rob Sayers from Leicester's Glenfield Hospital, used his charming bedside manner to say to Alan, ‘You do know this aneurysm is going to kill you, don’t you?’

The second consultant told Alan that he could operate the following Monday but that the chance of survival was only 10% and if he did survive then he would be permanently paralysed from the chest down as the blood supply would have to be cut off from his spinal column. He felt that an operation would be far too risky and it would be better to be on blood pressure medication to reduce his BP to 120:70. He said that there wasn’t much left inside Alan’s aorta to attach a stent to as it was thrombosed and that the aneurysm extended into his legs. He said that with reduced BP then the walls of the aneurysm may also thrombose and become stonger.

The third consultant, Professor Manuel Galinanes from Leicester's Glenfield Hospital, told Alan that he could operate and use a stent to repair the aorta and that the chances of success would be 50%. Thirty minutes later, just after I went downstairs to fetch coffee, he returned to say that an error had been made and it couldn’t be done. He said he would come back to explain all this to me, but he never returned and we left the hospital, quite frankly, devastated.

Professor Robert Stuart Bonser

NHS Death Row versus The Priory Hospital: Professor 'God' Bonser :)

This blog is a HUGE "Thank You" to Professor Robert Stuart Bonser - of the Priory Hospital in Birmingham - for saving my husbands' life, after he had been deliberately misdiagnosed as inoperable and terminally ill by a Professor with a Knighthood who was working for the NHS.

Cure the NHS campaign group

Dead patients don't cost the NHS a thing

How many women need to stand up to Britain’s cash-strapped National Health Service and strip its policies bare to reveal a strange, ingrown corruption that declares some patients inoperable, and sends them home to die, in order to balance their books and reduce waiting lists?The dual culprits in my husbands' potential demise were a nastily burgeoning aneurysm on his aorta, and a National Health Service so good at hiding life-saving information, even from itself, that it could spend as much to kill him as to save him. When a doctor can save a life, he is supposed to do it, but some keep silent about expensive treatment. Dead patients don't cost the NHS a thing.This could happen to any one of us.When you are given a prognosis with no hope, please don’t stop there. The worldwide web is very useful to help research anything and everything that might apply to your illness. My own research found life-saving information in the USA, The Netherlands, Germany and Norway. But what I really needed was right here in the UK - the NHS just didn't want me to know about it. This story has been featured in Take a Break magazine in the UK.

Sir Professor Peter Bell

The knighted professor at Leicester Royal Infirmary who diagnosed my husband inoperable to save money for the NHS and to meet Government targets. He didn't have the relevant expertise himself but failed to use NHS guidelines to refer my husband to Professor Bonser, until 14 months later, despite knowing of his expertise. click on picture to view email.

University Hospitals Leicester

Cardiologists lead the way in the task of deciding which patients should receive certain expensive diagnostic tests and which should not